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Gods Cowboys have arisen! And what a resurrection! After 22 years of wandering in the wildernesses of the Emerald City, the Messiah-istic messengers, Billy (John Knowles), Slim (George Catsi) and Buck (David Delves) have brushed off their stetsons, re-mounted their trusty steeds and ridden forth to consecrate the sanctum of The Petersham Bowling Club to re-enlighten the world.

Yea, verily, with their ecclesiastic sheep dip they will wash away the sin-icisms of the unbelievers and lead them from the genesis to the exodus of the religions of the world. They will reveal a true testament of scriptural insights like … it was not David, but Moses and his tablets, that got Goliath stoned!

It’s not easy to re-create a show that has ‘slept’ for 22 years, nor recapture the evangelistic energy that used to make it swing! But sometimes needs must. And this ‘need’ is one that affects the boys deeply.

John’s wife, Ronelle Knowles, was recently diagnosed with incurable cancer. Ronelle is a professional singer and musical director of the quartet Vocalicious and the choir ALCHEMY a cappella based in Petersham for 18 years. She is a full-time high school teacher, Scout leader and has just completed her Masters in History.

The boys have brought Gods Cowboys out of retirement for two ‘fundraiser’ performancesin hopes to provide some financial assistance for John, Ronelle and their four young children in the uncertain days ahead.

Photo : Steve Wimmer (still badly)

Last Saturday’s show proved they still have it! It was entertainment all the way. The show gets off to a really resonating start as twanging twosome, Hank and Lou-Lou-belle (Marko Mustac and Lou Lou Pollard) introduce the band Good Tom Wallace to set the country and western scene.

And then Gods Cowboys hit the stage galloping, bringing the “fun back into fundamentalism” with their all singing, all dancing country ‘Cowbaret’. Back in the day, SMH reviewer Pamela Payne wrote:

“Gods Cowboys are assured, dynamic performers with a wicked sense of irony … They play it straight from the holster with diabolical accuracy… these three performers create riotous comedy…they demolish without mercy all that their outward pose supports. They preach a method of sharp comic conception and takes the stage by storm!”

And they are proving that they can do it again!

Slim, the snake oil preacher; Buck, the desperado deacon; and Billy, the free-range altar boy are back in their saddles and riding high. Their resurrection has taken longer than three days – inspired by someone very special to many – but they have emerged just as full-on and funny!

In fact, ‘tis a pity there are only two shows because it seems to me that their brand of wicked parody and caustic satire is even more ‘now’ than it may have been ‘then’!

Harold Pinter’s plays are multi-faceted; his characters multi-dimensional. Getting inside them, even before putting them on the stage, requires insightful study of the script and the complexities and tensions it reveals between the characters. Director and cast need to work closely together in this process, melding ideas that arise with the director’s vision – and the original intention of the playwright.

In this production, Alex Bryant-Smith and Nicholas Papademetriou and their cast have done just this. They have been true to Pinter’s original setting and stage directions. They have researched and developed his intricate characters and their personality traits – then depicted their strange relationships in a production that, though set in the 1950s, and absurdist in style, resonates strangely with the modern world where homelessness, exclusivity, bullying and menace have become disturbingly prevalent

Stephanie Howe’s set creates the atmosphere of squalid loneliness in which the play is set. A tottering wall of over two hundred cardboard boxes sitting end on end rises from the stage. A doorway leads off to a dark landing. A ragged cloth hangs in the only window. A bucket is suspended ominously from above. Two iron beds and a chair are surrounded by a collection of household paraphernalia – a push lawnmower, a kerosene stove, a vacuum cleaner; a toaster, footstools, rugs, a shopping trolley, a spoked clothes horse, stacks of newspapers and books – all them intrinsic to the plot. Her costumes are of the time – and enhance the three disparate characters that inhabit the set.

Lighting (Sophie Pekbilimli), and sound effects (Glenn Braithwaite) that seem to echo through an empty pipe, add an atmosphere that is just a little threatening, definitely a little strange. This is confirmed by the opening scene where Mick (Alex Bryant-Smith) sits, staring silently and aggressively, then exits abruptly – and does not re-appear until much later. Such is theatre of the absurd.

Nicholas Papademetriou is outstanding as Davies. Convincingly dirty and dishevelled, even down to holey socks and torn trousers, Papademetriou creates a Davies that has run the gauntlet of living rough and trusts no one. He is suspiciously watchful, continually alert, but cleverly perpetuates an air of confused bewilderment as he shuffles in open sandals, constantly sniffing, rubbing his nose, scratching his head, rolling his eyes, repeating phrases, stumbling over words. Davies is an opportunist, prone to deception, and Papademetriou plays him with convincing cunning.

Poor Aston, kind and easily deceived, is played with unassuming gentleness by Yalin Ozucelik. He creates an Aston who, quiet and self-effacing, ushers Davies into his home and unwittingly falls prey to his deceits and demands. Ozucelik finds the innate sadness . . . .

Bruce Glen, the Gentleman Magician, is a consummate performer who recreates the elegant ambiance of the nineteenth century drawing room salon gatherings in the beautiful, heritage listed Sir Stamford Hotel.

Actor, storyteller – and polished magician of long-standing reputation – Glen ‘takes the stage’ in a meticulously choreographed and practised performance that draws his audience into the “neverland between logic and imagination”. Softly spoken, he smilingly captivates the audience, using the history of magic and a plethora of quotations to provide the ‘patter’ that beguiles and distracts from the slickness of his dexterous sleight of hand.

Aided by his assistant, Kate, he uses all the recognised accoutrements of the trade – rope, silk handkerchiefs, a cup and ball, crystal vases, wine goblets, playing cards, numbers – to conjure and amaze, always gently diverting the audience with the simple device of words. Anecdotes about famous magicians, humorous tales of fictional colonial practitioners of his mesmerising art, a description of the mythical Sir Stamford ‘ghost’, are expertly used to disguise each skilfully contrived deception.

a meticulously choreographed and practised performance

The third-floor salon of the Sir Stamford is the perfect place for this “intimate evening of stylish magic and intriguing stories” that has been attracting visitors to Sydney on Friday and Saturday evenings for the past five years. Magic has a universal attraction. Glen suggests it’s described best in the words of Mark Twain: “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them they are being fooled”.

Photo : suppled

‘Stylish” is the operative word for the evening. Guests are met in the foyer by the Concierge who, in true magician style, spreads a deck of cards asking them to take one. This becomes their ‘ticket’ to pre-show canapés and champagne where they are welcomed by the equally stylish Kate. The salon, like the hotel itself, breathes taste and chic, nineteenth century sophistication. It’s the perfect venue for a performance art that, though it harks back to ancient Greece and Egypt, but was honed to an artform byJean Eugène Robert-Houdin, originally a clockmaker, who opened a magic theatre in Paris in 1845.

Bruce Glen’s Magical Soirée is a little theatrical gem hidden in the heart of Sydney Cove, one that attests to Raoul Dahl’s instruction to “watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places”.

Jen Silverman invokes the troubled but tenacious heroines of the Brontë sisters’ novels – and the lives of the sisters themselves – in this melodramatic/absurd/black comedy set on the bleak English moors. Using the ‘cover’ of the oppressive restraints and limitations experienced by women in the nineteenth century, Silverman raises still relevant issues of gender, class, sexuality and repression.

She assembles her characters in true Brontë style. Two sisters, Agatha and Huldey, live a tense, lonely, austere life in an isolated cottage on the moors. Their only company is their ill-treated dog, Mastiff, and a strange all-purpose maid, who changes name and personality as she moves from scullery to kitchen to parlour. A governess, arrives, lured by a stylishly written offer of work purportedly from their brother, Branwell, who is boarded up, like Mrs Rochester, in an attic room.

Photo : Clare Hawley

As the play evolves, the real eccentricities and temperaments of the characters, including the poor the dog, are revealed.

Director Kate Gaul uses a shiny, dark revolve to symbolise the treadmill from which the characters can’t escape. They move in its restrictive circle, unable to get away from each other or the desolate countryside that surrounds them. Though they might sing about “a life where we’re freer than the grass, bolder than the daybreak”, the reality is that “the Moors swallow up all the sound”.

A curtain, held high above the stage symbolises the grey desolation of the moors, shimmering and reflecting Fausto Brusamolino lighting, the gloomy mood emphasised by the eerie suggestions of Nate Edmondson’s score. And Eva Di Paolo’s beautifully designed costumes accentuate the natures of the characters and the restrictive time in which they lived.

Gaul directs her actors to accentuate the stiff, contained posture and clipped speech suggested by Silverman’s carefully contrived, economic script. There are no unnecessary words – and Gaul supports this with no superfluous action. Every movement and reaction is precise and meaningful, whether between the sisters – or Mastiff and the Moorhen as they meet on the moors. Gaul and her cast have reached inside the script and embodied the characters.

Romy Bartz plays the severe, manipulative Agatha with stiff and inflexible poise. This is a demanding role that requires varying levels of emotional control and persuasive cunning, which Bartz handles seamlessly.

Enya Daly plays her younger sister, Huldey. Dominated by Agatha, Huldey, like many of the Brontë characters, resorts to her diary, where she shares her humdrum life and unattainable dreams. Daly finds the girlish naivety and awkwardness of the character as well as her growing need for recognition and escape, which erupts in a final scene where Daly uses her diverse performance skills.

Emilie, the governess is played by Brielle Flynn, who, in the relatively short time span of the play, moves Emilie from initial enthusiasm, to confusion, disbelief, distrust and eventual submission. Silverman uses Emilie, as did the Brontës, to expose the flaws of the society of the time – and Flynn portrays this clearly.

Photo : Clare Hawley

Diana Popovska is the undervalued maid-of-all-seasons, wise to the to the wiles of both the sisters and alert to their every devious action. Popovska – and Gaul – make this grey-clad character almost gawky, creeping her across the stage in bent, ungainly, erratic movements that accentuate her ubiquitous scrutiny of the sisters, and facial expressions that belie her obsequious manner.

The usually ignored and mostly mistreated dog, Mastiff, is played with believable canine intuitiveness by Thomas Campbell. Swathed in knitted shawls, Campbell crouches on the stage, watchful, alert, missing nothing, including Agatha’s scorn and harshness. It is no wonder he retreats to the safety of the moors, where he finds love of a kind in a flighty, injured moorhen, played with gentle, chirpy inquisitiveness and caution by a very lithe and nimble Alex Francis.

The relationship between Mastiff and the Moorhen seems the reverse of those that play out in the cottage – but Mastiff has learnt well from the sisters!

Some may ask why Silverman chose to this period, these characters and the gothic nature of the plot to make her point. To others, especially women, the reason is abundantly clear. Plus çachange, plusc’estlamême chose.

In Bloody Murder playwright Ed Sala sends up every drawing room murder mystery on stage or screen, every possible character stereotype, and every possible murderer’s modus operandi. Think Midsomer without the Barnabys, Death in Paradise without the palm trees and sunsets, Christie without Miss Marple

Set it all at a proverbial weekend party, in the proverbial parlour of a proverbial isolated manor “forty kilometres” from anywhere. Add lots of absurd twists and turns, bizarre relationship disclosures, some melodramatic deaths, and some funny lines … and you have a play that director Bernard Teuben says “has been the most fun” of the many comedies he has directed.

Teuben describes his set as growing “from a great idea I had, with new elements arriving every day” – much the same, I should imagine, as Ed Sala might describe the writing of Bloody Murder! As the play lampoons murder mysteries, so too does Teuben’s set.

Picture a full stage with high, very blue walls covered – literally – in a vast array of gilt framed prints from Pre-Raphaelite to Van Gogh to Post-Modern. Furnish it with the mandatory Chesterfield (two of them), the leather armchair, the obligatory drinks table and French doors, and a picture window swathed in mustard-coloured velvet.

Photo : Chris Lundie

Supervising them all – and supposedly most of the plot variations – are the wealthy, but shrewd dowager, Lady Somerset, played with aloof ‘cool’ by Sandy Velini and her dutiful housekeeper, Jane, played with initial deference and growing control and equality by Marilyn Parsons.

In to this colourful scene arrive the stereotypical characters. There is the talkative retired army Major, played with pompous self-importance by Aurel Vasilescu and the once famous actor, played with acknowledged self-defeat by Larry Murphy.

There’s a freeloading young relative, Charles, played with cheeky impudence by Ben Freeman, who, of course, has his eye on the young ingénue, played with indifferent disinterest by Brittany Macchetta … and an imposing Countess, played with spotlight-chasing validation by Jodie Klopf.

That is, until they all double, briefly, as other stock “mystery” characters in one or other of the various twists the Author devises.

Bloody Murder is not like other murder-mystery-comedies– it’s all of them written into one – and to say any more about the plot (other than some hints above) would, in the words of Lady Somerset “ruin the party”.

What is A Prelude in Tea? It’s a series of Sunday afternoon concerts featuring afternoon tea and a music performed by some of Australia’s best and most exciting small ensembles, presented in the stately Independent theatre with its impressive acoustics. I was lucky enough to be invited to attend many of the 2018 concerts, but not once last year did I see the patrons crowding the foyer or spilling out onto the footpath and into the side lane as they did yesterday.

What could possibly attract such an enormous, animated crowd? Obviously, I’d not experienced the “rumbling, steam powered and black clad behemoth” that is The Spooky Men’s Chorale. Nor the eclectic theatricality of their performances.

Led by spookmeister Stephen Taberner – conductor, songwriter, arranger and deadpan comedian – the Chorale is ‘Not a Men’s Group’ – as we were told emphatically and very harmoniously in one of their songs.

Rather, think of them as a “wall of mansound … who seek to commentate on the absurdity and grandeur of the modern male, armed only with their voices, a sly collection of hats and facial hair and a twinkle in the eye”. That is, sixteen men who synchronise beautifully while being cheekily satirical and extremely funny.

. . . . an incredibly well-disciplined group who mix music and satire . . .

Formed in 2001 by Taberner, The Spookies emerged from the Blue Mountains, singing Georgian table songs, ballads and their highly original “man anthems” such as “Jim”, a musical dig (pun intended!) at the ubiquitous expansion of once small gardening/cleaning/pet grooming companies. They have gone on to tour locally and internationally – and as the crowded theatre yesterday attested, they have attracted a more than enthusiastic following.

Taberner, a master of the use of pause, intersperses the songs with a poker-faced commentary that is complemented by similarly straight-faced reactions of the singers behind him. This is an incredibly well-disciplined group who mix music and satire in a performance that is melodiously entertaining as well as being mischievously sassy.

The concert gave us songs from their original repertoire, many written by Taberner. In the suggestively titled, “Don’t Stand Between a Man and his Tool”, the guys skilfully mimed using a range of tools while they sang lyrics such as:

Some of them use batteriesSome of them use mainsSome of them are quietSome cause complaints

They also paid tribute to other musical styles, including a tribute to their original Georgian repertoire. Tall, silver-bearded Dave Warren led them in Tom Wait’s lyrical love song “Picture in a Frame” and their combined composition based on Tennyson’s metaphorical elegiac poem “Crossing the Bar” was emotionally moving. They forsook their individual hats to don orangey coloured cones for “the prophecy of the Three Brothers” and had all but a reluctant few standing and dancing to their very loudly demanded encore.

The Spooky Men are more than a chorale. They are a tightly-knit musical ensemble who understand that men singing in harmony can be political, sardonic, theatrical and much more than just “a men’s group”.

This almost anti-feminist play is one of the Australian plays listed on the HSC Drama Syllabus, so it can be expected that it will attract some local year 12 students – as it did on opening night. The five about-seventeen-year-olds in front of us were the most enthusiastic of a very appreciative audience. The production obviously met their expectations of the play and the characters – and I’m sure director Jess Davis was thrilled by their immediate responses and their post-play comments.

Davis has taken playwright Joanna Murray-Smith’s foreword to heart, finding the farcical elements of the play in a fast-moving production that accentuates the “quick wit, big ideas and ridiculous reveals” created by a writer who is able to comment on the changing phases of feminism through female characters that are strong, out-spoken and, as Davis says in her program notes, “carry the action with thought and input” unlike the “underwritten female characters” created by some male Australian playwrights.

The action centres around Margot Mason, an “admired/ridiculed” radical feminist, obviously based on Germaine Greer and her late twentieth century cohort of female activists. Margaret Olive takes on the challenge of this role, that is at once strident feminist and ageing author, living alone in an isolated house where she strives to find a key into her next book

. . .faithful to the satirical wit and intelligence of Murray-Smith’s writing – and her actors bring to their roles the energy and boldness the characters deserve.

Davis and Olive hit the ground running with a long, one-sided telephone conversation with her publisher that introduces Mason and the play. They make it loud and punchy, highlighting both Margot’s arrogant conceit and the coarse language and one-liners that set the tenor and pace of the production. Olive obviously relishes Margot’s fire, and the roller coaster of egotistic highs and denigrating lows she rides – even though handcuffed to a desk through much of the action.

Photo : Dawn Pugh

Lib Campbell is vivacious and expressive as failed student Mollie, who is determined to make Margot pay for her mother’s suicide and her own lack of self-esteem. Campbell is always in character, finding in words, actions and immaculate timing, the dilemmas that drive Mollie, the complexity of the character suggested by Murray-Smith’s words … and Davis’ zany vision of her.

Equally striking is Zoë Crawford as Margot’s daughter, Tess, a fraught mother of three who has been undermined by Margot’s expectations and rejection. Crawford plays Zoë withsophisticated insight and poise using carefully timed pauses and comedic timing to reveal even more depth to the character than the words she speaks. . . . . .

Photos of the cast interwoven with lovely shots of Italy play on a screen in the foyer of the theatre. Reproductions of Renaissance paintings adorn the walls. Others, stylishly framed in gold, surround the proscenium arch and reach around to encompass the stained-glass windows which are a feature of 1868 building that is the Genesian.

It’s so good to see a director and his creatives thinking beyond the stage and the script. Congratulations Mark! Your vision sets the scene as elegantly as E.M. Forster described it in 1908.

Often adaptations lose some of the impact of the original novel, but this is true to the plot and to Forster’s gentle, but telling, critique of English society in the early 20th century. The contrasts in Forster’s characters are clearly defined by Parsley and Graham and distinctly conveyed in Nagle’s direction.

Nagle and Mark Bell have cleverly incorporated the imposing brick wall and stained-glass windows behind the stage as the backdrop of the set. Four pillars are used to symbolise the Renaissance architecture. Trailing ivy evokes both the Italian summer in the first act, and an English garden in the second. The use of minimalist props – a bench, a stool, a leather chair, two ‘carriages’, a hinged leaf-covered lattice – moved on and off the stage as part of action, adequately change the various scenes.

Susan Carveth’s costumes add to the style and colour of the period – but require, as in all period pieces, careful checking by cast and crew of hems, buttons and creases. Sound designer (Martin Gallagher) and composer (Georgia Condon) recall the music of the time. Lighting, designed by Martin Schell, sets the various moods well, but does not adequately light faces in some areas of the stage, nor take into account the shadows cast by the hats that were de rigueur for the period.

Nagle directs with attention to both the style of the time, and the pace required of contemporary theatre. Action is carefully and discreetly blocked. Actors hold themselves sedately and move gracefully – except of course for the youngest character, whose disregard of ‘genteel’ behaviour brings light humour to the plot.

Phoebe Atkinson plays Lucy Honeychurch, a young English girl travelling to Italy for the first time in the company of her aunt. Lucy is eager to lead a more independent life and her experiences in Italy challenge many of the values and ideas with which she has been raised.

Photo : Grant Fraser

Atkinson portrays all of these changes in Lucy over the course of the play, finding her original naivety, her curiosity and her burgeoning awareness and self-assurance.

Her aunt and chaperone, Charlotte, whose early restrained poise and rectitude is gradually eroded by the influence of others, is played by Anna Desjardins. Desjardins finds all of this in a controlled performance that portrays the challenges faced by the character, and her changing warmth.

One of the most delightful characters is Mr Beebe, a “wise and likeable clergyman with a youthful and playful spirit”. Tristan Black (and Nagle’s direction) suggest many aspects of Beebe’s character: his lack of social snobbery, his understanding of love despite his presumed celibacy, . . .

After twenty-two years dancing and choreographing with Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company, Sharon Eyal and her collaborator and partner, Gai Behar, formed L-E-V Dance Company in 2013, (lev is the Hebrew word for ‘heart’). Their work, with musician Ori Lichtik, has been performed at over 200 venues around the world, including a Christian Dior fashion show at a race course outside Paris in 2018, where eight dancers interacted with the models as they showcased the collection.

In OCD Love and Love Chapter 2, described in the program as “a double shot of tough love”, Eyal explores the heights of love and the depths of loss of love. Whilst the two play on consecutive nights, each stands alone as an innovative interpretation of the almost primeval complexities of love and relationships.

OCD Love, which premiered in 2016, is based on Eyal’s reaction American slam poet, Neil Hilborn’s “personal, funny, but crushingly sad” poem about the difficulties of loving someone with obsessive compulsive disorder.

The second, Love Chapter 2, is about the “devastating aftermath of a love affair”.

The sixty-minute long interpretation is performed by three female and three male dancers, dressed simply in thin, grey leotards and shin-high black socks. There is nothing simple, however, about their skill, or the control demanded by Eyal’s inventive and meticulously structured choreography. In time with the increasing pace, intensity and volume of Lichtik’s musical accompaniment, the dancers – lithe, slim, extremely fit and, necessary for this piece, incredibly flexible – express the devastating pain and heartache of broken love.

With muted lighting emphasising the grey gloom of emotional desolation, they move with impeccably controlled precision that emphasises Eyal’s ability to physicalise intimate emotions in original, imaginative choreography. Anguish, misery and anger are represented in movements that are tightly measured and exactly executed. Tension exudes in taut muscles, tight breathing, the pulsing tempo of Lichtik’s accompaniment – and in the fixed, silent appreciative attention of the audience.

L-E-V presents contemporary dance that is avant-garde, and therefore demanding and liberating, testament to the aim of the Opera House’s Contemporary Performance program that “champions modern story tellers and the mavericks who re-invent classic forms”.